


i think i might have made it real (i think i might have made it so real)

by moonbeatblues



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, and that’s It folks, i am. here for betty and veronica everyone else can go home, i might. make another chapter for this. if i feel so inclined
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 01:18:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16052474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: Betty touches two fingers to her mouth.“I’ve never kissed a girl before.”Reverent. Like she’s speaking to the screen of a confession box.God, Veronica Lodge really does have a monopoly on her secrets.





	i think i might have made it real (i think i might have made it so real)

**Author's Note:**

> the tchaikovsky piece mentioned is his sixth symphony— i was listening to it for the first time after getting the cello part for it and had a Religious Experience™
> 
> i’m not especially invested in the show itself, but i am Quite invested in the ao3 tag
> 
> (the phrase painfully suburban is from another fic in reference to betty and. it thouroughly stuck in my head)

Well, it’s not really Betty’s first kiss.

 

But Veronica Lodge is the first _girl_ Betty kisses. Which, in her mind, makes it all the more important.

 

Not that Veronica knows that.

Betty might be as painfully suburban as Cheryl calls her, but she’s a champion in internalizing— that one, glorious suburban sport.

—

 

Betty’s whole _deal with Archie_ is an anomaly in every sense imaginable (god knows there’s a strange, sick relief in maybe actually having a crush on a boy. A long-awaited reassurance of normalcy). The word therapy has never once crossed Betty’s mind in regards to herself— the only calluses on those soft, pale hands come from the absolute death grip she’s got on her bootstraps.

Talking to anyone about Archie, let alone the girl dating him, hasn’t exactly been the prerogative.

 

But Veronica is, well, Veronica.

Parents like the Lodges only bring about two types of kids— the disaffected, and the disillusioned.

Veronica has a fervor for information unmatched anywhere Betty’s ever been— the fact that she’s even in Riverdale is a challenge unto the gentry, the country-club-sanctity.

And who is Betty to refuse her that information?

 

(Veronica would probably call herself an opportunist, and if Betty wasn’t so _fucking in love_ with her, she’d say Veronica was closer to manipulative.

But vicious cycles start for a reason, right?)

 

And she’s so lovely and poised about it, but she won’t really understand the way it felt like uprooting a tree, so many strands that have never seen light.

An enormous, painful heave, and a collapse under the too-bright sun. Dirt flung everywhere.

It’s written all over Betty’s palms and nowhere else, and no one to read them.

 

(One day, Veronica will take Betty to see the symphony. In the big belly of the hall Veronica will tell her about Tchaikovsky, and why he never met the woman who wrote him all those letters.

And in the dark, a little cold and a little nervous that she won’t get it and Veronica will be disappointed, she’ll hear that second, distinctly Russian melody just _bloom_ out from the strings into the clarinet, and, well. That’s what it felt like to kiss Veronica. Forget the tree, it was like an entire spring, all at once.)

 

Betty doesn’t take in much of what comes after— far be it from the five senses to interrupt a gay awakening. She’s thoroughly in andante.

—

They’re back in the locker room, all at once, and Betty’s standing in front of the mirror.

 

Slowly, regretfully, she wipes at her smudged, gloriously discolored lipstick. Her cheeks are still fading from that sunstruck red.

(Fake lesbian, indeed. Oh, Cheryl.)

 

She touches two fingers to her mouth.

“I’ve never kissed a girl before.”

 

Reverent. Like she’s speaking to the screen of a confession box.

God, Veronica Lodge really does have a monopoly on her secrets.

 

Behind her in the mirror, Veronica’s still changing out of the uniform. She wiggles her hips when she’s stepping back into her jeans, and Betty’s eyes drop to the sink.

 

Veronica always laughs like she’s never been afraid to.

“Well, you’ve been missing out.”

 

She’s still shirtless. She catches Betty’s eye in the mirror and winks, and it’s the last they talk about it for a long while.

—

 

“But you have to have thought about it before, right?”

-

 

Being in Veronica’s house, Betty always wonders what the appeal is in having such poor lighting for such a large house.

This late in the year the afternoon slides into evening fast and even with all the heavy curtains drawn back, Veronica’s bedroom is all shadows and dusky, receding orange.

 

“Betty?”

Oh, right. They were talking about something.

God, she hasn’t been sleeping enough.

 

“Sorry, what?”

 

Veronica’s eyes are dark as the furthest corners of the house, and all of a sudden she’s watching Betty just a little too closely.

“I said, you’ve thought about leaving before, right?”

 

“What? No.”

 

“Really? Not after all those years of Sunday school and shitty middle school dances?”

 

Betty blinks. “I didn’t know— I thought I was like everyone else. What else was there to be?”

 

She knows Veronica won’t get it.

Veronica has been to places where you learn you’re being spoon-fed. Places where there are other things to look at should you turn your head.

 

“But you must have known, right? Had crushes? Weirdly stressful sleepovers?”

 

“I don’t— I never let myself.”

Betty looks down like it’ll keep down that old, crawling fear. Dark at the corners of her eyes and in her throat, like ivy, like mildew, like all things that never see the sun.

The quiet decay of things kept down too long.

“You were my first.”

-

It’s the first thing Betty says that actually stops Veronica in her tracks.

“Your _first?_ ”

 

Betty nods, tight and small. The second confirmation comes easier, almost sweet, and she feels close to smiling. God, it feels good.

 

“Like, first girl you _liked_ , or _kissed_ , or— “

 

“All of it.”

Every time, it’s a little lighter. Like each sandbag drops easier after loosening the first.

 

Veronica inhales fast through her teeth. It’s quiet and it sounds almost like regret, and it scares Betty.

 

“Jesus, Betts, I’m sorry.”

There’s no mistaking the regret in that one.

“I should’ve asked, I should’ve— “

 

Betty has to lunge, almost, over Veronica’s bed to grab her hands.

Cold at the fingertips, like in the gymnasium.

 

“Ronnie, it’s okay.”

She makes sure to look Veronica in the eyes. If there’s ever been one way to tell when Veronica’s nervous, it’s to watch her eyes.

“I wanted to. I wanted _you_.”

 

Betty doesn’t want to ask about Archie after Veronica kisses her again.

She’s here and she’s snaking those cold fingers into Betty’s hair with no pretense, no one to impress— it’s just Betty and Veronica, Veronica and Betty. Like it should always be.

Veronica still has green tea on the back of her tongue; Betty has never liked green tea but holy _fuck_ , she does right now.

 

It feels like that big Russian burst of song. It feels like living, and Betty cries later, in the sanctum of her car because living is so _much_ the first time around.

—

 

It’s always been that she ends up drawn in by people that are so very much— people like Veronica and Archie, they’re almost otherworldly.

_Monolithic._

 

And seeing them together hurts like nothing else on earth.

—

God, she wishes so many things.

Staying home has never felt worse on Friday nights— she keeps seeing neon when her eyes close, she keeps thinking about Veronica’s dark lipstick on Archie’s cheek, Veronica— Veronica who glances at the stadium floodlights with something acerbic about head trauma already halfway out of her mouth— wearing Archie’s letterman with the too-big sleeves pushed up to her elbows; Veronica pressed up against the passenger door of his car.

Betty bites her lip in the dark of her bedroom. It tastes like neon. It tastes like envy.

 

Mom doesn’t ask where she goes anymore. She slots her key into the ignition with a shaking hand and takes in the mantra of _just going for a drive_ with one painful inhale.

She rolls the windows all the way down to spin her hair into perfectly uncharacteristic snarls, and the October air won’t get sour in her mouth if she doesn’t let it sit there.

 

Betty drives, and pretends the hum of the gas is enough to keep her warm, and her mouth goes sour anyway.

—

Why Veronica’d ever stop on her account, she doesn’t know. Feels stupid for even thinking it.

Veronica Lodge is a regular steamroller, and Betty knows she isn’t a big enough pebble to have even slowed her down. She’s no-one to stop Veronica from doing whatever she wants.

 

Veronica kisses her at the corner of her mouth when they take a break from studying, and for some reason that does it. The quiet of her kitchen is deafening— _she’s selfish, she can’t expect more, it’s not fair,_ and she doesn’t notice she’s digging her nails into her palms until Veronica makes this pained gasp and grabs for her wrists.

-

Betty’s ears are still ringing when Veronica pushes her hands under the running sink.

She feels so heavy, so tired, catatonic all of a sudden. Like she’s short-circuited herself.

Realizes she’s crying with blank surprise, shakes Veronica’s hands loose to swipe at her own face, her palms raw.

 

“Betts?”

Veronica can be dizzyingly sweet, but she’s never delicate.

God, why now?

“What’s wrong?”

 

Soft. Like she doesn’t know _exactly_ what she’s doing.

 

Betty sighs. Surprises herself with how much she flattens the words.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Veronica.”

It feels like talking from outside herself. Distant, fuzzy, angry.

Like they’ve already been arguing; Veronica flinches without the nickname.

 

“What do you mean?”

For the first time, she looks small, standing there in Betty’s kitchen.

Betty reaches over to turn off the faucet.

 

“You don’t get to just— just _do_ that.”

 

“I thought— you—“

 

Confusing Veronica feels wrong, sick.

It feels _good_.

 

“You can’t just kiss me me whenever you want and still be with Archie. It’s not fair.”

 

She watches Veronica get it, watches her face fall.

“Betty, I’m sorry. I—“

 

Betty doesn’t interrupt. Just lets her trail off before speaking. “I deserve better. Archie deserves better.”

She’s on a roll, now.

“Until you figure that out, just. Don’t.”

 

Veronica is quiet, and Betty closes her eyes to avoid her expression.

“Just leave, please.”

 

She waits another moment.

 

“I’ll see you Monday.”

—

 

It takes a week.

And god, what a shit week.

Veronica’s the all-or-nothing type, and Betty made it clear that this was the latter.

 

She doesn’t see her outside of class.

She doesn’t see her with Archie, either, and it feels the worst kind of good.

 

To some degree, she’s got a leverage over Veronica that’s gone largely unrealized, until now. Monolithic though she may be, Veronica’s still thoroughly new, and Betty, well.

This is Betty’s turf.

—

 

Friday night finds her, unexpectedly, at the football game.

It’s high school, for god’s sake. There’s some unspoken joy to games that even Veronica has to acknowledge. Something sacred, and it’s palpable even as she’s taking the sleepy walk back to her car.

 

And, less unexpectedly, she finds Veronica in the parking lot.

-

She’s leaning against the driver’s side door, and if Betty had gotten here about ten minutes earlier, she might’ve cut a much more imposing figure— backlit by the stadium, the big, open halves of her coat flared out like some cloak.

 

But it’s October— she’s got her coat buttoned up and her hands balled deep in the pockets.

She’s shaking, a little; those dark eyes keep sweeping all over Betty’s face, landing a little too long on her mouth and avoiding her eyes.

 

“Hey,” she says, low and tossed up on the wind, and Betty leaves her there, standing stiffly, for a moment before replying.

 

“Hey.”

 

Veronica unlocks her car.

—

For the first few minutes the air pouring out onto the front seats feels the same as outside. The windows start to fog up, and Veronica clears her throat.

 

“I, uh.”

She finally dares a look at Betty’s face. “I broke up with Archie.”

 

Betty says nothing— she’d like to think it’s to keep Veronica jittery, but moreso, she doesn’t trust herself not to break open at the mandible.

 

“I’m so sorry, Betty,” Veronica says. “You were right, and I wasn’t fair to you.

“I thought—“ she pauses, “—I thought if I didn’t say anything then it would be okay. Like it wasn’t real as long as I didn’t move.”

 

And in the dark and the quiet and the warmth, _finally,_ from the defrost, Betty is privy to something a little unreal.

Veronica Lodge, crying. Quiet but for the sounds of her sharp inhales, mouth dark and open.

“I was scared, for it to be real.”

 

She tilts her head back to collide, dull, with the headrest.

“New York was different. I mean, I already knew, and I fooled around with girls, but.”

She reaches for Betty’s hand, thinks better of it.

“You were the first one I really liked. I let myself think about it, and it scared the fuck out of me to think you might like me, too.”

 

Veronica swallows, rubs at her eyes, more like she’s exhausted than trying to stop from crying.

 

“I never really _loved_ someone before, y’know?”

 

She’s almost conspiratorial about it for a moment before her eyes go wide.

 

“I didn’t— I mean—“

 

And Betty closes her eyes for a long moment. Breathes in and it doesn’t hurt, basks in the warmth and the broad, pale pink behind her eyes, and decides.

 

Leans over the gear shift to press her mouth to Veronica’s with a sigh and to card one hand into the hair behind Veronica’s ear.

 

It feels right.

It feels like B major.

It feels like coming home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i’m @seafleece on tumblr and @quetzalcoatmundi for writing; come say hi!


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